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This was a really good analysis and article. Whether we like it or not, roughly 1/2 of America -- mostly outside the urban centers -- is very strongly motivated by fear. Specifically: xenophobia, or fear of the unfamiliar or foreign (not like a foreign country, but foreign or different from their every day experience).
Racism, homophobia, and all the rest are nothing more than fear of the different -- the "not like us."
The Republican party recognized this a long time ago and have totally mastered the art of playing on that fear in ways that most of us can't even imagine.
When those of us in the progressive community ridicule the folks who speak from a base of fear and call them names like bumpkin and rednecked idiot, all we do is reinforce the fear.
If progressives ever want to get the fear based community to recognize that the people they're most afraid of are the ones who are advocating changes that are most likely to make their lives better and also that the ones who are advocating the status quo and telling them to be very afraid are the ones whose policies are keeping them living in the economic and social shadows, we've got to learn a way of talking to the fearful in a "healing" way.
I know that sounds sappy and touchy-feely, but it's also the truth. We need to find a way to counter the right (who play the fear-based like a violin) in a way that doesn't scare the bejusus out of them -- a way that they can hear; a way that will help them understand and stand up to the bullies who have been manipulating them into voting against their own interests for all these years.
I still think that Obama is at a huge disadvantage because of his race, but that doesn't change the reality of what has to happen if he wants these people to vote for him. They're afraid of him, and he has to find a way of communicating his message to them that helps them be unafraid of him - whether it's his race or his religion or whatever the hell it is that scares the poo out of them.
$0.02
